


Stumbling In the Dark

by thesaddestboner



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Arrogance, Boston Red Sox, Cocky Bastards, Figurative Dick Measuring, M/M, Not!Fic, Southern accents, World Series, post trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaddestboner/pseuds/thesaddestboner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Beckett hears the rumors for weeks, right up until the day they finally pull the trigger and he’s moved, but it still comes as a shock to the system.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stumbling In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be my epic Beckett/Papelbon+Beckett/Lester fic but I got blocked when I realized it was going to have to cover Lester's bout with cancer. If you want a fic that deals with that time period, read [**americanleaguer**](http://americanleaguer.livejournal.com/)'s [alternate spellings accepted](http://archiveofourown.org/works/125287), which is everything I wished this fic could have been anyway.
> 
> Title from Massive Attack's "Teardrop."
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thesaddestboner) and [tumblr](http://saddestboner.tumblr.com).

Beckett hears the rumors for weeks, right up until the day they finally pull the trigger and he’s moved, but it still comes as a shock to the system. Being traded from the only organization he’s ever known is like being dropped into a vat of ice-cold water, pretty much. 

It isn’t unexpected, though. The Marlins had just committed to their second rebuilding project in less than a decade, and everyone who was on that 2003 team is practically gone by now. He and Lowell go together to Boston for some high-ceilinged shortstop and a couple prospects who are too wet behind the ears to make an immediate impact. Carl went to New York the previous season, and has been an injury waiting to happen ever since. Pudge and Ugie went to Detroit together, and then Ugie landed himself in a Venezuelan prison at the end of the year. The only ones left in Florida are Miggy and D-Train, and everyone figures they’ll both be moved eventually.

One word that comes to mind is _exodus_.

Not to say that he isn’t happy to be out of Florida, but you never forget guys you won a championship with. At least he has two of them with him on this new, foreign team. Lowell is a calming, sure-handed influence at the hot corner and Gonzalez is a steady defender up the middle.

And, hey, maybe it won’t be so bad here in Boston, where the lights shine brighter and hotter than they ever did in glitzy, glamorous South Beach—where Beckett never felt he belonged anyway. The guys here make him feel welcome right away. Curt Schilling takes to him immediately, sees Beckett as something he can mold in his own image, fireballer with some tooth to him. The younger guys, guys like Jon Lester and Jonathan Papelbon, hang on his every word, eyes growing as big as saucers when Beckett is comfortable enough in the Boston clubhouse to show off his World Series ring a week or two into Spring Training. 

Schilling, never one to be outdone, brays, “I got _two_ of those,” and reaches into his locker, pulling out a polished mahogany box. He lifts up the lid to reveal two ornately designed championship rings, resting on a rectangle of black velvet cloth.

Papelbon and Lester gravitate toward Schilling, eyes locked on the two rings, mouths hanging open, the two of them looking like starved puppies sizing up a T-bone. 

“Can I put it on?” Papelbon brings his fingertips scant millimeters away from Schilling’s mahogany box before pausing, glancing up at Schilling for permission.

“ ’Course you can.” Schilling preens, barrel chest pushed out, smug grin twisting up at the corners. He reaches into the box and pulls out the first ring, the one he got with Arizona, and hands it off to the rookie. Papelbon slips it onto his ring finger and it slides to his knuckle.

Beckett turns back to his locker and tucks his own, now forgotten ring into a velvet sachet, cinching it up and sticking it on the highest shelf. Schilling’s mahogany box looks more like a coffin than anything else, anyway.

“—now let _me_ see it, Jonathan!” Lester’s voice cuts through Beckett’s thoughts like a knife, and he turns back around, annoyed and ready to cut some rookies down to size. The two of them are grappling over the ring, fighting out who gets to try it on next. Papelbon holds it out of Lester’s reach, grinning broadly, and both of them are giggling.

Beckett almost can’t believe it, and yet, there they are. “Don’t act like you’ve never been here before,” he barks at them, tugging his red Spring Training jersey off a hook at the back of his locker. The two of them pause to gape at him as he shrugs it on and begins to button it. Schilling is watching him too, eyebrows raised. “You guys’re pros. Act like it.”

After allowing Beckett’s words and tone a few seconds to seep in, Papelbon slips Schilling’s ring off his finger and drops it back into the velvet-lined box with a heavy thunk. “Sorry, Curt,” he says, chastened.

“Yeah. Sorry, Curt.” Lester gets up and puts his arm around Papelbon’s shoulders, dragging him out to the field.

Schilling snaps the lid tight and places the box back in his locker. “Didn’t have to be so harsh on ’em,” he says, mildly, bending down to tie his shoelaces. “Just rookies, y’know. You were one once, too.”

“Gettin’ on my fuckin’ nerves,” Beckett mutters, stuffing his jersey into his belt. “Do they always have to be so goddamn—” He falters, unable to find the right word, and looks to Schilling to provide one for him.

“Happy?” Schilling smirks.

“I was lookin’ for somethin’ more like— _perky_ ,” Beckett says, slipping his feet into his cleats and bending down to lace them up. “Or maybe somethin’ more like _annoyin’_.”

Schilling gives him a slap on the back and Beckett jumps. “Don’t let ’em get to you. They’re just a couplea dumb kids. Who knows if they’ll even break camp?” Schilling gives Beckett another shit eating grin before lumbering off.

Beckett watches after him before doing up his belt and grabbing his glove, flapping it onto his hand and flexing it, tracing callused fingertips over the webbing to make sure it’s all tight and tied down in the right places. When the glove passes his inspection, Beckett ducks his head down and follows some of the new teammates out onto the glistening green field.

The two rookies are marching in the tall green grass, arms swinging, matching smiles dominating their faces. Papelbon jabs his elbow sharply into Lester’s side and Lester jabs back, clubhouse dressing down already forgotten. Their high-pitched giggles assault Beckett’s ears and he shoves on his headphones to drown them out.

It wasn’t this bad in Florida, where everyone was young and green just like Beckett. They all had the same learning curve in Florida, came up through the system together and knew the same things. Did the same things (same girls, even). It was easy to settle down in a routine like that, where every day was practically the same, and nobody cared enough to watch you with eagle-eyes, waiting for you to just fuck it all up.

Beckett’s a veteran now, though, an honest to God _grownup_. It reminds him of that Bible quote, _When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things._ Beckett put away childish things when he left the Marlins. He has to keep an eye out, keep these rookies in line like Redman and Pudge and Ugie and Derrek and all the old guys with the Marlins used to. Although Pudge and Ugie behaved more like kids than the youngest, wet-behind-the-ears rookie at most times, and nobody really listened much to what Redman had to say.

Beckett’s thoughts explode like scattershot when he feels something hit him square between his shoulder blades. He whirls around to find a football wobbling in the grass before finally coming to rest on its side. “The fuck?” He reaches back to rub between his shoulders.

“Sorry.” The kid, Lester, bounds over and picks the football up, squeezing it in his hands. “Got away from me there.”

“I’ll say,” Beckett mutters, lowering his headphones, wearing them around his neck like a collar. “Watch where you’re goin’ with that thing.”

Lester nod, head jerking, like a little marionette puppet on strings. “Of course, Josh. Sorry.”

Beckett rolls his shoulders back and sighs, loosening his stance. “It’s fine,” he says. “Stop apologizin’.”

“Okay.” The kid breaks into a smile, instantly agreeable, and Beckett furrows his brow. “What?”

“Nothin’.” Beckett glances toward the whistle-snap of fastballs hitting catchers’ mitts in the bullpens. Papelbon is the only one who hasn’t thrown a pitch yet. He’s got his glove drawn up to his face and he’s giving the catcher Varitek such an intensely— _something_ scowl, that Beckett decides to wait and see what the kid does next. Lester sidles up next to him and flips the stupid football in his hands, watching Papelbon too.

The kid fires a fastball that climbs the ladder, and even Varitek can’t get his glove on it completely. It glances off the tip of his catcher’s mitt and nails the backstop, before caroming right for Beckett’s head.

Beckett has only a split second to react and drop to his knees the grass. The ball whizzes past his head and hits the turf, skipping along through the grass before rolling harmlessly to a stop. Beckett sits up, breathing hard, and shoots Papelbon a baleful glare.

The kid lowers his glove to reveal a pleased grin. “Fore.”

“Cute.” Beckett pushes himself to his feet and slaps the blades of freshly shorn grass off his knees. The palms of his hands are damp and he wipes them off on the front of his jersey.

Papelbon offers Beckett a dazzling smile. “Thanks, ’s what my mom always says. You all right? Didn’t scare ya too much, did I?”

“I wasn’t scared,” Beckett grates, wishing he was literally shooting daggers at the stupid kid.

“ _Sure_ you wasn’t,” Papelbon says, grin widening. 

It’s almost as if the kid is feeding off Beckett’s burgeoning hatred like some unholy, soul-sucking preternatural being. “I wasn’t,” Beckett snaps.

Varitek trots over to Beckett and retrieves the wayward baseball, tucking it safely in his massive leather glove. “Sorry ’bout that, fellas.” Varitek casts Papelbon a look. “He’s still learnin’.”

“Think he knows plenty,” Beckett says, still glaring at Papelbon. “Or, at least _he_ thinks he does.”

The old catcher adds nothing more to the conversation, and instead heads back for the bullpens where Papelbon is waiting. Varitek lobs the baseball to him and Beckett follows the high wobbling arc it cuts through the dusty air, landing perfectly in Papelbon’s cupped hands. 

The kid steps back onto the white rubber slab and scuffs at it until he finds the right grooves in the dirt with his cleats. His eyes glaze over, mouth tightening, and Beckett can practically hear the metal girders slam shut in the back of his mind. Papelbon rears back and lets a four-seamer fly. The ball whistles into Varitek’s glove with a solid thump and Beckett can’t help but grunt his approval, grudgingly impressed.

“He’s got the best fastball out of any of us,” Lester says, unexpectedly materializing by Beckett’s side. “He can touch a hundred.” Lester's tone is hushed, reverent.

Beckett flicks his eyes on Papelbon skeptically. “A hundred? Even _I_ can’t hit a hundred, kid.”

Papelbon raises his glove to his face, the only thing Beckett can see of him his intense stare.

“Oh, totally,” Lester says. “He did it all the time in the minors.” He pauses. “Mostly for the girls. If he saw a girl he liked in the stands, he’d throw one extra hard just to impress her.”

Beckett snorts and leans back, crossing his arms over his chest, digging the toe of his cleat in the dirt. “Classy.”

Papelbon fires another pitch. This one makes a _cracking_ noise when it hits the center of Varitek’s oft-abused mitt, and even Beckett has to raise his eyebrows. A short, pudgy team employee in a floppy brimmed hat and loads of Sunscreen raises a radar gun and another guy peers over his shoulder.

“Gun must be broke,” Beckett hears. He smirks.

Papelbon steps off the makeshift mound and heads over to Beckett and Lester. “What’d they say ’bout that one?” he asks.

“Broke the radar gun,” Beckett says dryly.

Papelbon’s face lights up in a dementedly bright grin. “Awesome. Think that’s the third one already!”

Beckett snorts. “Whatever, kid. It wasn’t _that_ hard.”

“How fast was that one, Tek?” Papelbon tosses over his shoulder.

“Think I’m gonna have to ice down my hand,” Varitek calls out.

Papelbon turns back and grins at Beckett, as if that proves it. “Tek wouldn’t tell a lie.”

“Don’t you ever get sick of everybody blown’ smoke up your ass?” Beckett asks.

“Nah.” Papelbon grins. “I think I kinda enjoy it, actually.”

Beckett smirks again. “That don’t surprise me one bit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Papelbon asks, pushing his chest out, jabbing an index finger at Beckett, but Beckett detects a hint of a spark in Papelbon’s eyes.

“Whatever you think it means, kid.” Beckett brushes Papelbon’s hand aside and tries to step around him.

Papelbon pokes his finger into Beckett’s chest. “Hey, I ain’t finished with you.”

Beckett whacks his hand away, light mood taking a sudden nosedive. “Tough shit, _rook_.”

“Hey, I may just be a rookie but I been here longer than _you_ have. I don’t gotta take _shit_ from you,” Papelbon says, still jabbing at Beckett with his index finger. He offers Beckett a challenging glare, jaw squared.

“And I got a World Series and an MVP. What do _you_ got?” Beckett wraps his fingers around Papelbon’s hand.

Papelbon opens his mouth and then closes it, at a loss for words.

“ ’s what I thought,” Beckett says, dropping Papelbon’s hand. He glances behind him and see that Lester kid watching them with worried eyes, like he thinks he’ll have to jump in and break up a fight and he really, _really_ doesn’t want to. “Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna be throwin’ down. It’s fine.”

“That’s what _you_ think.”

Beckett turns around just in time to get tackled by Papelbon. The kid crashes into him and pulls him down to the ground, pinning his shoulders into the grass, rolling on top of him.

“Get off me, you fucker!” Beckett rears up, trying to throw Papelbon off, but Papelbon just presses him back into the grass, surprising Beckett with his strength.

He can hear shouts and the thumps of hurried footsteps as the cavalry rushes in.

Beckett rears up again and manages to knock Papelbon’s hands free of his shoulders. The kid falls onto his back and Beckett looms over him, breathing hard. Papelbon is prone on his back, open and defenseless, and Beckett could move in for the kill, but he doesn’t. Instead, he crouches down beside the kid and pats him on the chest.

“You’re fuckin’ lucky I’m such a nice guy, or else I’d be smearin’ you all over the sidewalk,” Beckett grunts.

Papelbon just grins up at him.

“The fuck’s going on?” Varitek nudges Beckett aside with his shoulder and offers Papelbon his hand, hoisting the kid up and slapping at the blades of grass on the front of his jersey like a concerned parent.

“Kid thought he could take me.” Beckett tips his chin up and puts his hands on his hips.

“Oh, I just _let_ you win.” Papelbon grins.

“Want a rematch?” Beckett steps forward, prepared to tear the kid down to size, but Varitek slaps a palm smack in the middle of his chest.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t really care. Just keep your hands to yourself. We’re not in middle school.” He shoots both of them meaningful looks before heading back to the bullpens.

“Well,” Papelbon says, still grinning that stupid grin. “Guess that’s that. You won’t be gettin’ no rematch.”

Beckett crosses his arms over his chest and gives Papelbon an appraising look. “Oh, we’ll see.”

\--

[[]]

“I was a starter comin’ up through the minors,” Papelbon says. “Then they switched me to closer on account of my plus fastball and my plus change—and really, my plus everything.” Papelbon cocks a grin at Beckett over his tankard of beer.

“You and Lester,” Beckett says. “You guys’re buddies?”

“Oh, we used to be pretty close, but I’m a closer now. Bullpen and rotation don’t hang ’round each other much. Least not here in Boston.” Papelbon takes a sip of beer. “Reckon ’s like that on most teams though, anyways.”

“So then why’re you havin’ a beer with me?” Beckett asks.

“ ’Cause you offered. And who’m I to pass up a free drink?” Papelbon grins at him.

**Author's Note:**

> The author of this piece intends no insult, slander, or copyright infringement, and is not profiting from this work. This story is a complete work of fiction and does not necessarily reflect on the nature of the individuals featured. This is for entertainment purposes only. If you found this story while Googling your name or the names of your friends, hit the back button now.


End file.
